


Morning Sun

by aethernity



Category: Super Sentai Series, Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2119029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aethernity/pseuds/aethernity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is Hiromu, and there is a visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s raining so hard outside that Hiromu honestly wonders if his neighbour’s chickens are going to drown. (He never liked them anyway – stupid, noisy, dirty flapping things.) His loom sits in a corner, a piece of fabric taking shape on it, half-finished work with only the beginning of a pattern woven in. The house, usually filled with cheery voices of those come to seek Hiromu’s services, with laughter and chatter and the clack of the loom, is now silent except for the sounds of the downpour outside, and the crackling of the fire.

Sitting in a chair by the hearth, Hiromu finishes the last of the thin soup that is his dinner. He sets the bowl aside on a table and leans back, unused to the solitude. Rika would comment on the rain, on how unusual it was, and they’d talk about anything and everything – the little flute that Iwasaki seven houses down had made for little Yuri, about Uncle Jin’s obnoxious relative here from the Capital to visit, and about how the Usamis intend to send little Yoko to study in the Capital schools where “she’ll have a bright future, no doubt, and marry a rich and learned man like she’s always wanted to.” Now, though, with Rika having been invited to the Capital for two years in the service of His Majesty the King, Hiromu is alone with only the family rabbit to keep him company. “Furball?” The rabbit’s ears perk up, and Hiromu picks it up when it scurries over and stops by his feet. Placing Furball on his lap, Hiromu absentmindedly begins to stroke it.

It’s been long since Amakura has had torrential rain like this, he thinks. The only things rarer are meteor showers, and strangers in the town – because, as much as the few who ever visited praise Amakura for its charm and hospitality, why would anybody ever want to stop by a town a good distance away from actual carriage roads as Amakura was? As a result of the seclusion, Amakura’s people all knew each other. It was hardly a monumental task, seeing as seven families made up most of the inhabitants – the Kurokis, who owned the land and the house next to the church and everything around it; the Masatos, who’d been here longer than anyone could remember; the Nakamura and Morishita families, related by multiple marriages; the Iwasakis, moved here from Nagayama three generations ago; the Usamis, who always sent their children to the Capital to study and always saw them return; and of course, the Sakurada siblings, whose great-grandparents came to Amakura from distant Kazegawa, and brought the arts of weaving and painting with them.

The rain is unrelenting, and deciding that no work is worth getting done immediately, Hiromu picks up Furball, places it back in its enclosure, and heads over to a thin mattress in a corner of the room. By the time his head touches the mattress, Hiromu is almost asleep, drifting off as the rain falls on.

\-----

A clap of thunder jolts him awake. Furball is scratching at the bars of his enclosure, staring in the direction of the door. The rain outside seems almost heavier than before, and Hiromu is starting to think the gods are either out to drown the chickens or drown him instead. The fire is burning low, he realises, and he gets up to pull some wood from the pile and stoke the flames.

As he prods as the pieces of dry wood with a poker, there is a knock on the door.

Hiromu stares at the door, blinks a few times, and then goes back to poking at the logs. A figment of his imagination, probably – no one in Amakura would be out in this weather, much less knocking on neighbours’ doors. The chopped logs are starting to burn, and the fire brightens just a little as the pop and crackle of wood grows louder. Pop. Crack. Knock. Knock. Knock. Pop. Pop. Knock. Furball’s ears are pricked up now, and its eyes are fixed on the door. Hiromu experimentally lifts Furball out of the enclosure and places him on the ground, only to find Furball scurrying over to the door and begin pawing at it nervously, the way Hiromu had only ever seen him do with strangers.

A visitor to Amakura? In a storm?

He hesitates, hand already halfway to the latch. Rika would never open the door to someone without knowing who he was, but this was a storm, and Hiromu's been caught in enough rains to know that in Amakura, even the lightest of rains combined with the ceaseless winds is enough to fell even the healthiest of people.

So, against his better judgment, he opens the door and ushers the cloaked figure in.

As Hiromu closes the door and latches it, the stranger speaks, startling Hiromu slightly. “I apologise for intruding.” The voice is clearly male, but there is a soft elegance to it that Hiromu cannot place. The stranger pushes the hood back, and Hiromu is speechless for a second. The stranger’s russet hair is drenched, sticking to and covering the entire left side of his face, but as it is brushed away, Hiromu sees chiselled features and almost-unearthly elegance and everything he knows Rika would only dream of seeing in any of her subjects. His eyes meet the stranger’s then, and the one thing that strikes Hiromu right away is how beautiful the brown of the stranger’s eyes is.

As it stands, however, the laws of Amakura hospitality never allow for a stranger to be left standing completely soaked while his host gawks, so Hiromu offers to take the stranger’s cloak and ushers him over to the chair next to the hearth where the fire now crackles merrily, warm and powerful and alive. Playing the part of the perfect host comes almost instinctively now, especially after having lived with Rika, who would allow for no aberration or error in hospitality. Within moments, the stranger has bread and soup and hasty apologies from Hiromu (“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting any guests, but it’s an honour having you here in this town! I don’t have much, but please accept what little I can offer as a little welcome gift!”), and is shivering significantly less than he was before. Hanging the stranger’s cloak up where the warmth of the fire will dry it, Hiromu pulls up another chair opposite the stranger, who looks up at him.

“I apologise. I don’t mean to be an inconvenience, but I thought seeking shelter from the storm ought to precede any further action, and your house is nearest where I came from.” Hiromu nods, thinking hard. If his house was nearest where this man came from, then he must have come from the northeast…from Hanabara? Why anyone who was in Hanabara, when given the choice between leaving for Amakura or the Capital, would choose Amakura was something Hiromu could hardly understand.

“Well, there is shelter here all right, and you’re more than welcome to stay as long as you need! Most of Amakura likes new people, anyway – just play with the kids, laugh at Uncle Jin’s jokes, and humour old Kuroki, and you’ll be right as, well, rain!” The corners of the stranger’s mouth twitch up at Hiromu’s words, and Hiromu smiles. “So, I’m Sakurada Hiromu, the town weaver. You are…?”

The stranger hesitates. “Call me Enter.”

Hiromu repeats the name, his confusion growing. Enter was an unusual name for a person, for anyone in the Kingdom. Something about Enter, though, was completely disarming – Hiromu somehow hardly felt like Enter was capable of hurting a fly, much less attempting to threaten the peace of the town. At any rate, Amakura did love new people, didn’t it?

“So, Enter, how long are you going to stay?” Hiromu waits for a reply, which comes after a moment of thoughtful silence. “I do not know. Perhaps as long as I believe that the Capital is not the place for me, I suppose?” Enter, from the Capital, here for…a period of time. Got it.

“D’you know anyone here? Family, friends, the like?” Hiromu asks, and Enter simply shakes his head. No problem there, then. “Well, my sister’s away in the Capital, I have a spare mattress and Amakura probably could use extra labour. It’s not much, but it’s work, food, and shelter. You can talk to the Kurokis – they own the land and run the town,” Hiromu adds upon seeing Enter’s slightly confused expression, “– tomorrow, when it’s not raining cats and dogs. You in?”

The smile on Enter’s face somehow warms him more than the brilliant fire does.

\-----

Three days later, Hiromu walks in to find Enter petting Furball, the latter squirming and affectionately nuzzling him. Hiromu leaves them alone, going off to talk to the Iwasakis, and comes back to find Enter asleep, Furball curled up against him.

Considering that Furball usually attempts to murder anyone who wasn’t Hiromu, this is a good sign.

\-----

Amakura loves Enter, Hiromu soon realises. Barely two weeks after Enter arrived in Amakura with the intention of staying, the entire town has accepted him as one of their own, with the occasional moments of fawning over the new (and, in Yoko-chan’s own words, ‘very, very, very handsome’) arrival. Enter adapts well, too – Hiromu shows him the ropes, and soon enough Enter is helping him sell bales of cloth and chatting with the townspeople and gathering firewood just like any other townsperson.

What starts out as another peaceful day in Amakura, however, is interrupted by the whinny of horses and the sound of hooves on the path leading to the town entrance. Hiromu and Enter are both at home when they hear it, but in that instant, an unfathomable _something_ crosses Enter’s face. Snatching up his cloak, Enter rushes towards the door.

“Hey, where are you-”

“Say nothing of my presence, and tell those you meet to say nothing of it either! I will meet you when they have left!” With that, Enter all but dashes out, and Hiromu sees him disappear into the woods behind the house. Confused, Hiromu wanders out to join the crowd gathering in front of the three handsome stallions and the riders smartly uniformed in the garb of the Royal Guard.

“Hear ye, subjects of His Majesty the King! His Majesty has offered a handsome reward to anybody who has seen His Highness, the Prince of the Kingdom, and who will share his whereabouts! If anyone knows of the prince’s whereabouts, speak now, and forever be in the King’s favour!” The guard’s words send a murmur of discussion rippling through the crowd. Forever be in the King’s favour! Amakura was secluded and rarely received news of anything outside of their community, but the King was still respected as the supreme authority. A handsome reward! Amakura, Hiromu knows, would take it in a heartbeat – if only they knew exactly what kind of prince they were looking for.

“Is there nobody who knows of the prince’s whereabouts? Are there no strangers amongst you, people of Amakura?” A louder murmur spreads, and Hiromu worries. _Say nothing of my presence!_ Enter’s words ring in his ears, and before he realises it, Hiromu has stepped forward to address the guard.

“If there was a stranger in Amakura, honourable warriors of His Majesty, we would know, and we would gladly share. But here, everyone in Amakura now is family – there are no strangers present, and so we cannot be of assistance.” Lying to the Royal Guard would probably earn him a death sentence, Hiromu knows, but he did make a promise. Assent echoes through the assembled crowd, and the guards nod.

“Anyone with news of His Highness is to bring that news to the Capital immediately, in exchange for a handsome reward. Those are orders from His Majesty himself. With that, good day, townsfolk of Amakura.” The guards turn and leave, their horses kicking up clouds of dust in their wake, and Hiromu is surrounded by people offering him pats on the back and congratulatory words (“Good speech, son, always knew you had it in you” “Well, well, well, couldn’t have said it better myself!”). When he gets back to the house, he finds Enter sitting by the hearth, Furball on his lap.

“Did you mean it?” Enter asks. “That there are no strangers in Amakura now?”

Hiromu nods, and the brilliance of Enter’s smile outdoes even the morning sun.

He understands no more about Enter than he did on that stormy night, but right now, that matters little.

\-----

Hiromu finally decides to ask after five months.

It’s a casual question, asked over a dinner of bread and soup and chicken from the Iwasakis. “So, what was life in the Capital like?” He watches Enter closely for a reaction, and sees a thousand and one things flash across the other’s face. After a moment, though, Enter smiles.

“It was…different.” Hiromu waits for him to continue, and continue Enter does. “I came from a well-to-do family, had everything planned out for me from the day I was born, given the best of everything in the Capital – an education, the best clothes, best food, just- everything.” Enter gestures in a sweeping motion. “Everything money could buy, my parents provided for me and my twin sister.”

“So why’d you leave?”

Enter’s smile is bitter, almost sad. “Because I was barely my own person. Told how to act, taught how to act, what to do and say and think – I hated it. I hated being nothing more than P- than my father’s son, due to inherit the family, ah, business and pour my soul into it. So I ran away from the gilded prison, and came here.” Enter sets his bowl down, leaning back slightly in the chair as he looks at Hiromu. “You are lucky here, you know. You decide your own fate, your own destiny, and you work for your dream. You are, at least, your own person.” In the firelight, Enter looks tired, worn, frail – the opposite of everything Hiromu’s ever seen in him, and it scares him.

Hiromu doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t need to. Reaching over to squeeze Enter’s shoulder, Hiromu smiles at him. “Well, you’re your own person now, aren’t you?”

The smile he gets in return remains in his mind for the rest of the night.

\-----

Hiromu finds out six months later, when his confusion dissipates like fog in the presence of the brilliant morning sun.

By all standards, the night is no different from any other night. Dinner and conversation with Enter, watching Enter play with Furball while Hiromu weaves, and then sleep. Enter’s cloak, the same one he’d been wearing when he arrived in Amakura a year ago, hangs next to Hiromu’s. Something Hiromu never noticed before, he now sees – there is something at the bottom of Enter’s cloak, a little glimmer he’d never noticed before. Hiromu stands up, heading straight for it, and Enter catches on immediately. Before he can stop Hiromu, Enter’s cloak is in Hiromu’s hand, and Hiromu understands.

The one thing that has left him confused for an entire year, he now understands.

“Hiromu?” Enter’s voice is trembling, filled with things Hiromu has never heard from him before. Worry. Anxiety. Fear. "Please-"

Getting on his knees, Hiromu bows his head. “Your Highness, Prince of the Kingdom, your servant is at your command.” There are so many questions Hiromu wants answered, so many things he wants to say, but cannot – because he doesn’t know how to, because he doesn’t want to, because he _cannot_ say those things to the one person always treated with the same respect as the King-

That night is the first time he sees Enter cry.

\-----

The next morning, a sapphire and onyx ring lies on the table. Hiromu wakes alone, Furball listlessly staring at the door, ears pressed flat.

Enter is gone, and storm clouds swallow the last ray of the morning sun.


	2. Chapter 2

“Brother? What troubles you?” He smiles, stretching his arms towards the sky. The sun peeks out from behind fluffy clouds up above, with only a hint of gray clouds over the horizon. It’s a cloudy day, and she likes that just fine – perfect weather for horseback activity, for picnics in the sizable Palace Garden, or for walks around the palace. “Nothing. Nothing much, anyway.” She knows he is lying, and she does not ask.

That night, it is that lie that keeps her awake, and that lie is the reason she manages to catch one last glimpse of her brother, slipping out the servants’ entrance to the Palace (after having very generously paid off the sentry on duty, probably) right before sunrise. He sees her standing there, shawl wrapped around her in the cold night, and winks, beaming at her for what she hopes will not be the last time – then again, if he can finally, truly be happy, she thinks, _then let it be the last._

Then he is gone, leaving in his wake the first rays of dawn.

\-----

The King is less than worried when the servants tell him of his son’s disappearance. What is a son when you have a nation to care for, other kingdoms’ territory to conquer, criminals to punish and justice to be dealt? Her father, the Princess of the Kingdom knows, is a kind man, the saviour of the people, the ‘most benevolent’ king the Kingdom had ever seen, but she remembers little of him as a father beyond what she remembered at the age of ten. He takes care of her affairs, of course - arranged her education, her consorts, her engagement, everything a lady of her stature could possibly need - but beyond that and mealtimes, she rarely ever sees him outside of the throne room.

A dark cloud hangs over the palace. Officials, ordered to search for the prince in the network of nobility and royalty that stretches outward from the Capital and the palace as its epicentre, come up blank time and time again; envoys, sent on search-and-locate missions disguised as goodwill missions, return with no news at all; relatives and members of the gentry, asking after the prince at every opportunity, only ever get vague answers of 'out on business and to see the world'. A full week passes, and even with the assistance of her fiancé's family in the neighbouring kingdom, the Princess hears no news of (and no news from) her brother.

It makes her proud, almost. Her brother, outsmarting the royal court and the officials all on his own.

A week after, an official suggests sending the Royal Guards out to check every single town. The Princess says nothing, but as the court murmurs in agreement with the suggestion, she cannot help but think to herself in anger and condescending glee, _You fools._

\-----

Nearly a year after he'd left, the Prince of the Kingdom returns.

He's changed, she realises. When she runs to hug him, throwing himself into his arms, his embrace is stronger, more powerful, but still as gentle as before. His skin is tanner, his hands so much rougher than she remembers, but all that matters to he is that he is her brother, the brother she's wanted to see so badly, and now he's back-

Something clicks, and she looks up at him, looks at his smiling face, keeps her eyes on him as he greets their parents and asks for their forgiveness, and when she gets the chance again, she looks him straight in the eyes. He's smiling, seemingly amused, but she knows - he is her brother, her twin, so how could she not?

She sees him sitting in the garden that evening, staring at the south-southwestern horizon, his eyes glimmering in the fiery, fading light of the sun.

\-----

Sometimes, when she sees him alone in the garden, or listlessly toying with a piece of thread or braided cord, when she sees the emptiness of his smile and the hollowness of his laugh, when she searches in vain for the spark in his eyes, it feels like her brother, the Prince she knew, never returned from his travels at all.

She knows not why, or what is to be done about it, but she does know that if something needs to be, she will do it. He is her brother, after all.

\-----

The finished portrait, a commission from one of the Kingdom's most acclaimed painters, now hangs on the wall of the throne room above the Princess' seat, framed in giltwood with intricately-designed vines of gold leaf and jewels curling around the frame. The Princess stands with the portrait’s creator at her side, admiring the new addition to the room.

“You are talented indeed. Truly, the court adviser made the right choice.” The painter curtsies, murmuring the usual things - what an honour it was to paint for the royal family, how it was her pleasure, and things that the Princess can almost recite by heart. Good that the painter knows them, though - the words of the refined, words of a proper lady. If she had been a member of the nobility, the painter would have had suitors lining up all the way to distant Hoshitani in the south - a pity, the Princess thinks, that the common people will only ever stay common, and that such beauty and refinement would never see the light of polite, refined, cultured society.

She hears footsteps then, and turns to see her brother in the doorway. “Thought I’d come here to see the new painting, and to check if the rumours of an artist-” He bows slightly in the painter’s direction. “-whose paintings make the beautiful almost celestial are true.” Glancing appreciatively at the walls, he adds, “It would certainly seem so.” The painter blushes and curtsies deeply, while the Princess just laughs.

“If only you would be willing to sit for a portrait! You are, after all, the only one missing from the room.” At those words, she gestures towards the blank expanse of wall above the Prince’s throne. Her brother simply laughs and waves a hand dismissively. Convincing him to have a portrait done is a lost cause - he’d learned to hate boredom and inactivity with a passion that she never understood, and asking that he sit still for hours on end was cruel, if not impossible.

“So, Sakurada, was it?” The painter nods, and out of the corner of her eye, the Princess sees her brother stiffen almost imperceptibly. “How long more will you be in the Capital?” Ten more months, she answers, until the exhibition is over. The Princess continues asking questions, everything from the exhibition to art to the painter’s family, and finds her a thoroughly interesting person indeed. Where in the Kingdom would she find an individual this keenly attuned to the beauty and nuances of art! And yet the Prince, despite his own passion for art and beauty, is silent. He is smiling, even if the Princess can see that it doesn’t reach his eyes, and there is something- something she does not know, something she has never seen in those eyes. Something, she thinks, he learned from his travels.

The same something flashes across his features when the painter begins to talk about her brother back home, and that’s all the Princess needs to know.

“Amakura, was it?”

\-----

Plenty of exposition (begging, pleading, a bit of tearing up), hurried preparations and one week later, the Princess is seated atop a travel horse and riding out from the Capital. It had proven difficult to convince her father to allow her out of the palace unguarded – she was a princess, after all, and the royal family would certainly rather not take any chances – but her brother had stepped in, and as always, his words got him his way and her wish. After promises to write back and an agreement to return after three weeks, the Palace had sent her off with their blessings.

Before she left, she had turned to her brother, who smiled and held out his arms. “For good luck?” The Princess had smiled, hugged him, and as she pulled away, said, “Let's see if I can find what you'd like me to bring back.” He had laughed, waved her on her way, and watched as she climbed atop the saddle. Then, in a clatter of hooves and a small cloud of dust, she had gone.

She already knew what he wanted most.

She had stopped over at Hanabara, which took three days and two stays at nearby inns to reach, to replenish her supply of food and water. The locals, hospitable as her brother had said they were, offered her everything they possibly could – local delicacies, trinkets, directions to Amakura and little tips on travel, cooking, self-defense and everything in between. Common talk, nothing like what was discussed in fine circles, but still she enjoyed it She had, as casually as possible, enquired about an extremely polite visitor with long brown hair, and gotten the answer she wanted: one had come in from Amakura and stayed for two nights before heading to the Capital.

“He been here too, a year ago,” the bartender added. “Asked for directions to Amakura. Polite as royalty, I tell you, and definitely could’ve passed for it if he tried, what with that face of an angel!” The patrons nodded vigorously in agreement, despite having absolutely no recollection of the incident. The Princess had smiled, drained her glass, and thanked the bartender before leaving.

Onward to Amakura in the morning, she’d decided.

The journey from Hanabara to Amakura took another three long days on the road, and even as the princess fast approaches the town entrance, her thoughts drift to soft pillows, warm blankets and hot meals back at the Palace. Yet she has come too far to turn back now - and if she turns back, she thinks, that light that disappeared from her brother’s eyes would never return. She can already see the buildings and the narrow archway leading into the town square, the steeple of the church, and the people stopping to stare. This town rarely received visitors, the residents of Hanabara had helpfully supplied, and so any visitor is bound to be a big deal.

The horse comes to a stop in the middle of the town square, and she dismounts. When a well-dressed man comes forward to greet her, she curtsies deeply, casting her eyes downward like any proper lady should.

“I apologise for intruding.”

She rises, to warm greetings and polite conversation and hospitality beyond anything she’s ever expected, and to a look of complete shock on the face of a young man.

\-----

The Princess steps out of the Usamis’ house, and heads towards the house at the edge of the village. In the two days she has been here, she finds out plenty about the visitor they called Enter, things she already knows and things that are new to her. She hears of his unfailing politeness, of his angelic features, of his manner of speech that sets him apart from everyone else in the town; the townsfolk tell her of how he blended in almost right away and became one of them, of how he worked just as hard as (and maybe even harder) than them, and how he would never refuse anyone who asked for his help in anything; they tell her of the weaver, the painter’s younger brother, who was Enter’s friend (Iwasaki Ryuuji kicks his younger brother Ryuunosuke under the table when he attempts to add _friend and more_ , but even if the phrase is never spoken, the Princess understands) during the one year that he was here. They tell her of Enter’s abrupt departure, of the little note he left at the door of the town hall thanking them for their hospitality but pleading urgent business elsewhere, and of how the weaver seemed less than fazed at the disappearance of the one person that he had become closest to over the course of that one year.

So the Princess decides to pay the weaver a visit.

It’s a bit of a walk from the Usami residence by the town square, but the house is easy to find. Even before she can recall which house it is she is looking for, the sounds of the loom give it away. The door is open, the loom and its owner in sight. He seems not to notice her, even as she stands in the doorway, not until she curtsies and speaks.

“I apologise for intruding. Am I disturbing you?” He jumps, startled by her presence, and promptly kneels at her feet. “Your Highness, Princess of the Kingdom, your servant is-“ So he knows. He’d realised, the Princess knows, the second she had entered the town – because even if her little act of being a mere stranger from the Capital was perfect, the weaver knows too much about her, about her brother, to be able to pretend for a moment that he bought into her act. The weaver knows what she wants to hear, and the Princess has never been denied (or let anyone deny her) what she wants.

“Arise, dispense with the formalities, and do not call me Your Highness. Pick something else instead, and begin using it. We are going to have a very long talk about you and my brother.”

As he rises, the Princess sees the woven black cord fastened around the weaver’s neck, the the sapphire-and-onyx stones of the Crown Prince’s Ring sparkling slightly in the sunlight streaming in.


	3. Chapter 3

Hiromu stares. 

He’s never had royalty walk in through his door - not while he was aware of it, anyway. More importantly, this is the Princess of the Kingdom, charmingly beautiful, polite and composed, standing in the house of a little weaver, talking to him as an equal. It is the first time he has ever faced this situation completely aware of what it means, and aware of just how much it should matter to him or unsettle him. 

“Well?” Hiromu starts, almost about to bow, then corrects himself. “E-Escape, was it?” Years of upbringing as a good Citizen of the Kingdom trip the words on their way, but Hiromu thinks he’ll get used to it. Pulling up chairs, he waits for her to sit before taking his seat facing her. For a long while, there is an uncomfortable silence - her eyes scanning his small apartment as he tries to keep up, tries to see what she is looking for-

“You have a rather cosy place.” Escape’s words are simple, matter-of-fact, and for a moment Hiromu is confused as to whether to take it as a compliment or a statement. Her eyes linger for a moment on his loom, on the little piece that he’d begun the night she arrived, and in that moment understanding flashes across her features. Afraid she will ask, Hiromu opens his mouth to defend himself, to say something, to say _anything_ , but before he can get even a word out, she looks up at him, looks him right in the eyes.

“So, tell me about my brother.” The question stuns Hiromu into slack-jawed silence for a moment, before he laughs. Where, he wonders, to begin? The question seems clear to both him and Escape, who adds, “Start from the beginning, and tell me everything. How he got here, how he ended up, you know-” She gestures vaguely at Hiromu’s loom “-here, what he did here, what it was like having him around… Everything outside of, you know, Princehood.”

Hiromu still has no clue what to say, but he tries anyway. 

“Um, it was raining.”

\----- 

He tells her of storms and rainy nights by the fire, of weaving and gathering wood and life in the town (which she is only just beginning to understand), of the little stream in the woods nearby. He talks of warmth, of light, of the colours of the town as they were when Enter was here – warm and serene and the best of everything Hiromu had ever thought the village could possibly be, and more. He tells Escape of the little children who would only ever run to hug (and at first, very nearly tackle to the ground) Enter, of the elders who fawned over him and treated him like they would their own sons, of the townswomen who all wanted to have the honour of being the first person to be asked for a dance by Enter (none of whom ever got it – despite their only-half-playful insistence that “dance comes naturally to fine folk, no?”, his only response had ever been to decline and plead a severe cluelessness as to how to dance), at which point he manages to get a laugh out of Escape. She nods, smiles, makes little noises of agreement in places, but otherwise lets Hiromu continue to tell her everything – from how the brown of Enter’s eyes matches the earth, the trees, the life and blood of the town, to how he would get up to watch the sunrise every morning, and how Amakura seemed the perfect place for him.

“So why’d he leave? What happened?” At the question, Hiromu’s sentence dies on his lips. Escape is staring straight at him, gaze piercing him as though searching his soul, and whatever courage Hiromu’s managed to build up withers and wilts away. Yet Escape, he knows, wants answers, and her presence, her determination, that look in her eyes flat out scares Hiromu and cows him into submission. 

“Royal cloaks are embroidered with the crest of the royal family, at the corner near the right foot. I saw, and because he’d told me other things about- about his life in the Capital. So I guessed.” He can feel her scrutiny, almost sense hostility in the unwavering gaze levelled at him, but now that she knows half the story, Hiromu is honestly convinced he is doomed anyway. “And a commoner can never hope to be friends with a prince. Just- cannot be.” It was a fact that everyone in Amakura, in Kazegawa, anyone not born in the upper echelons of society had been taught from the moment they were born – the aristocracy was on a separate plane of existence, one higher than that of the common man, a pyramidal hierarchy at the apex of which the royal family stood. A commoner attempting to associate with royalty, Hiromu had learned from young, brings about only his own doom and the obliteration of any future both could have. Loneliness, in place of Enter’s damnation to ‘peasant class’, was one hell of a bargain – or so Hiromu tries to convince himself. Even now, as he explains all of this to Escape, he’s still not sure he buys it.

Judging by the look she gives him when he says it, Escape believes none of it either.

She stands, and the sudden movement makes Hiromu flinch and bring his arms up to his face – but the blow he’d expected never comes. Instead, Escape turns and leaves, pausing at the doorway to glance over her shoulder. “And you save him from damnation, by damning him to loneliness?” With that, she is gone, leaves and dust skittering through the doorway as though to fill the void Escape leaves in her wake.

Hiromu walks over to the loom and picks up where he left off working on the woven cloth, running his hands over the threads, fingers unconsciously seeking out the brilliant flashes of gold amidst the dark blues and blacks of the weave. His thoughts, tumultuous and chaotic, are filled with Enter’s smile and laugh and the first golden rays of dawn piercing the pitch morning sky. 

\----- 

Two weeks after she returns, the yearly tributes from all towns begin pouring in. The King looks over all of them, Prince and Princess by his side. Wine and cheese from Nagayama, masterpieces of masonry from Shinseki, the finest delicacies from Hanabara and more, delivered to the Capital on a regular basis. The Princess always looked forward to this time of the year, every single year – tribute season means variety in the Palace, something new, something different. Even better are the artists and artisans that arrive – blacksmiths, carpenters, painters, musicians and dancers, so many new things to see and enjoy and appreciate.

She has fun most of the way, childishly poking her brother with a long feather (sent from Tsurumori, along with cranes and sparrows and all other things of the open skies) when the King is busy marvelling at Sakayama wine, and occasionally getting poked back or nudged. The Prince laughs and swats her hand away when the feather tickles his neck somewhere around the Miyamoto tributes, then carries on perusing a gilded tome from Kamimura. It’s when they reach the last set of tributes that the smile on his face fades, for reasons that only the Princess knows.

Among the tributes lies a bale of fine cloth in blue, gold, and black, and atop it, a letter in elegant script she knows her brother recognises. _Every year,_ the letter reads, _a select town has the honour of sending an artisan, a master of an art, to be attached to the Palace and bring back wisdom and learning. This year, our humble Amakura has the honour of being chosen by Your Majesty…_

And what a coincidence, the Princess thinks. 

They’re sending a weaver.

\----- 

Four weeks in the Palace, and Hiromu is considerably fed up with everything.

Rika had told him about the servants constantly following her during her commission at the Palace, and Hiromu hadn’t seen any reason for her to complain – life with just the two of them was hardly easy, and after a long day of weaving and gathering firewood and fixing the roof and helping his neighbor catch a runaway chicken (just so the bloody thing would stop its damned squawking and let him get back to moping over his day in peace), Hiromu often found himself dreaming of having people at his beck and call to do even the smallest things for him. Now, Hiromu sees exactly why Rika dislikes it – the sheer lack of peace and solitude in the Palace irritates him. Servants coming in to refill his teapot, bring him little biscuits and sweets and delicacies he’d never tasted in his life, stoke the fire, check if he needed anything… How exactly does the Palace expect craftsmen or artists to get anything done if their train of thought is interrupted every five minutes, anyway?

The Imperial Library is the only place he finds solitude, but even then, that very solitude extends into loneliness, a strangely unfamiliar sensation. The library itself, the stuff of legends, lives up to its reputation – rows of shelves that seem to stretch into infinity, books with gilded spines and bound leather covers and illuminated pages, all immaculately preserved and kept pristine, tomes on astronomy, on history, the sciences, everything he’d ever wanted to read or know about – but in all of its glory, it is quiet, painfully so. Hiromu finds himself stumbling across pages of new information, things he wants to share with someone – how to make brioche, the origins of gunpowder, amusing military blunders he can’t help but snicker at – and yet every single time, he looks up with a smile on his face and the words at the tip of his tongue, only to have them die in the face of the silence and the realisation that he is, in this vast haven of luxury and wonder and affluence, alone. Amakura never knew loneliness, and neither did Hiromu until now – there was always someone to turn to, someone to talk to, someone at the local tavern to joke with and share pointless stories with over the town’s strongest brew. Now, he finds himself surrounded by everything he could possibly want and have, but somehow, he finds himself yearning for those nights by the fire and by his loom, talking and laughing with whoever was visiting that night, or even for the incessant noise of those blasted chickens. After a while, everything blurs into a hazy, empty, meaningless wave around him. 

As Hiromu lies awake at night, he wonders if years and years of this hollowness is why Enter ran away. 

\----- 

The fact that he can never catch the Prince alone is starting to get on his nerves, too.

The only times Hiromu even sees him anymore are occasional, chance encounters in the Palace – crossing paths in the Palace Gardens while he is on a walk and the Prince is accompanying guests or the Queen, little glimpses of the Prince between or behind tall mahogany shelves and leather spines embossed with elegant gold print – or the few times he actually takes up the invitation to sit in on a Throne Room meeting. Through it all, the Prince is exactly what Hiromu imagined him to be – deferent, elegant, charming, polite. 

And Hiromu is used to seeing none of it.

He tries to catch the Prince in private, tries to find some opportunity to talk, but after two weeks of trying to no avail, Hiromu is thoroughly fed up with the Prince. A glimpse of brown hair and porcelain skin between the gaps in the courtyard trellises, a strain of an Amakura lullaby, flashes of blue and silver around corners- And yet Hiromu, breathless from the pursuit, arrives at nothing, grasps at nothing, turns a corner to hear only silence and solitude. 

He passes his time by weaving his soul into his work. Shed, pick, batten, repeat, shed, pick, batten… In the monotony of the loom, Hiromu can think – or not think. Frustration becomes bright angry reds against black thread, irritation brilliant yellow, emptiness and loneliness becomes grey and blue and tangled threads and a tired, despondent weaver sitting in a corner of the room, staring out at the overcast skies at the towers and the Palace East Wing. So time passes and chances slip through his fingers, like tangled yarn and knotted thread and empty, hollow silence.

\----- 

Hiromu knows that so long as he is here as a representative of Amakura, he is a guest of the Royal Family, and therefore _theoretically_ of equal standing as the aristocracy. Naturally, that entails privileges – requests, conversation, contact. That privilege, however, does not extend to making requests of the Prince of the Kingdom himself, or reaching out to grab him by the shoulder and yank hard enough to throw the poor fellow off balance.

Both of which Hiromu does, to the horror of the Prince’s attendants.

The Prince stares at him, surprise and confusion and recognition written all over his face, and Hiromu takes a deep breath. If he ends up in the dungeon cells for disrespect, so be it. “Come find me later, in the guest residence wing.” Stepping back, he manages a very stiff bow. The Prince stares wordlessly, and in that moment words he’d wanted to say all along well up in him. _You didn’t have to leave I wouldn't have said anything I didn’t say anything I’m sorry are you okay I-_

Instead, he simply says “I’ll be waiting, Enter.”

\----- 

He spends the rest of the day expecting not the Prince, but an armed brigade of the Royal Guard fully ready to escort him to a prison cell.

He’s still weaving when the sun sets, and still weaving when the stars glimmer in the sky. Sometime after, shortly after the courtyard lanterns finish lighting up one by one (an hour past sunset? Hiromu’s too distracted to recall anything), the door opens a fraction, and a familiar face peeks in. Hiromu pretends not to notice, and continues weaving, counting the seconds in his head. One. Two. Three. The fire dances in the fireplace, casting flickering shadows between Hiromu and the other.

“…it’s me, Enter. Can I come in?” This time, Hiromu looks up. Enter is still at the door, waiting, looking at him – almost apprehensively, Hiromu realises. The heddles cease their movement as Hiromu sets down the shuttle, rising from his seat. “I don’t know, can you? You’re the Prince, this _is_ your house.” A smile tugs at the corner of Enter’s mouth. Hiromu seats himself on a nearby couch and folds his arms, gesturing at the space next to him. The door clicks shut, and Enter walks over, before proceeding to flop onto the couch with a very undignified ‘oof’. A laugh bubbles up in Hiromu and escapes from his lips – two years ago, if anyone had told him that the first thing royalty did upon meeting a commoner would be to toss himself onto a couch and lie there, he would have laughed. 

Enter glances over at him, and when their eyes meet, a tense silence falls over the room.

Enter looks away first. He laughs, straightening up in his side of the couch slightly. “You’re sitting by my fireplace now, then. Odd, huh?” Hiromu nudges him in the ribs and watches him squirm away, the same way he always had in Amakura. 

“Yeah, but you serve better soup and bread.” That earns him another laugh, genuine, amused, personal.

Hiromu’s acutely aware of how much he missed hearing that laughter.

They lapse back into silence once more, and in that silence Hiromu wonders what to say, what to do, where to begin. Enter goes back to staring at the ornate ceiling fresco, watching the gold leaf glimmer in the light refracted through the hundred-crystal chandelier. Seconds pass them by, slipping away in the expectant quiet of things left unsaid and things not heard.

They talk, but after a very long while of awkward silences and failed conversation starters. Hiromu tells Enter of Ryuuji and Yoko and grumpy old Uncle Jin, of the flowering tree in the Usami’s garden, of those blasted chickens and how they still wouldn’t shut up, and of the giant rat he’d helped the Kurokis throw out of their manor. Enter, in return, tells him of Rika’s work, of the portraits in the throne room, of tribute season and what it brings year after year. They talk, and talk, and talk, and for a few hours, Hiromu almost forgets that this is not Amakura, almost forgets that this is the Prince, almost forgets that this is the one person he isn’t sure how to face.

Almost.

By the time the fire begins to die, they’ve been talking for hours. Hiromu rises, and glances at Enter. “It’s late. You should get back, before your servants call in the Royal Guard.” Hiromu gets up, aware of Enter’s eyes fixed on his back. The fire attempts a last feeble leap, and Hiromu stalks over, throwing the contents of a crystal glass onto the embers. The smoke spirals into the chimney, and between the final, almost sad sizzling of the coals and Hiromu’s own thoughts, he doesn’t hear the soft creak of the couch, or notice the figure moving towards him.

A pair of arms wrap around his waist, and Hiromu finds himself frozen in place, unwilling to move, to breathe, to do anything at all – because he is here, _he_ is here, and everything seems so unreal, so precious, fragile as though a breath of air could send everything to pieces. That moment, this moment, is everything Hiromu wants and misses and longs for, everything he is terrified of losing (and was convinced he had)- 

Then Enter presses his face to Hiromu’s neck and murmurs quietly “Or I could stay.” 

\----- 

Later that night, Hiromu lies awake in bed, listening to the sounds of the night he remembers – the distant barking of a sentry dog, the muted chirp of crickets, and to Enter’s soft, slow breathing, as he lies curled up at Hiromu’s side. The stars outside glimmer in the clear night sky, specks of white and silver against dark blue and black, lighting up the night.

Tonight, Hiromu’s home.

\----- 

In the morning, Hiromu wakes alone. 

For a moment, shock and terror wash over him. As he bolts upright, his fingers brush something different, rougher than the silk-and-fine-cotton sheets. Fumbling slightly, he pulls out a note from under the pillow. Elegant, flourishing script across paper sturdy and smooth – nothing like the scraps of cloth and paper they’d used back home.

_Out being a prince at the moment._   
_By the way, the Festival of Stars is tonight. I paid off the sentry._   
_Let’s go be commoners again when I’m done._   
  
_-Enter_

A tray sits on the bedside table, Capital silverware glinting in the light of the morning sun. Hiromu sits up, takes an experimental sniff of the contents of the silver bowl, and laughs. Bread and onion soup, the same as what he’d served Enter a year ago.

He rolls over and goes back to sleep. The sun is up in the sky, its rays seeping through the small gap in the curtains, leaving a trail of warmth and light leading towards the door.

\----- 

Hiromu’s been to festivals before, but none quite like the Capital’s.

The festival is a feast for the eyes – brightly coloured streamers hung from lamp to lamp, festivalgoers in robes of every colour and design, and occasionally a woman or child will turn around and Hiromu will catch a glimpse of a streak of gold filigree and light blue stones against black hair. The smell of batter frying against a griddle, of oil and spices and meat done just right, of the vendors’ hard work fill the air, and Hiromu spends a while just listening, seeing, taking in everything the festival has to offer.

Then Enter nudges him, almost impatiently, and takes his hand. Hiromu smiles and follows Enter’s lead, and lets himself be pulled into the festival, into its sights and sounds and experiences.

Later that night, as the fireworks light up the dark night sky, Hiromu leans over and presses his lips to Enter’s. They’re not alone, and as they break apart, Hiromu catches the eye of an old man leaning against a tree. The man grins and winks, and Hiromu can’t stop the blush that rises to his face. Instead, he shifts slightly closer to Enter, leaning into him as the fireworks burst above them, in brilliant blue and gold and white against the dark canvas of the sky.

The smile on Enter’s face, Hiromu thinks, could light up the sky.

\----- 

The next morning, Hiromu wakes up to a warm presence in bed next to him, curled up by his side, having stolen the duvet over the course of the night.

That little- 

He rolls out of bed, and Enter’s only response is a tiny noise of dissatisfaction and to steal Hiromu’s pillow as well. Hiromu heads over to the heavy curtains, yanking them open. As sunlight floods the room, a disgruntled Enter chucks the pillow at Hiromu, who laughs and ducks out of the way, before picking it up and taking aim.

“Wake up, Your Royal Highness, the sun wants to see you.”

The pillow hits Enter squarely in the face, and Hiromu spends the next few minutes laughing at the resulting undignified squeak from Enter.

The morning sun shines through the crystal window, warm and bright and beautiful.


End file.
